Department of Last and First Lines

Let's review. Yesterday we had two quotations, the first and last lines, from a literary work. You have had time to ponder, and now I shall reveal the source. The lines are from Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future by Olaf Stapledon.

Published in 1931 Last and First Men covers the entire 5 Billion years of future human history beginning with our own war torn present and ending with the dying of the Last Men on Neptune. In 5 Billion years, of course, alot can happen, and Humanity continues to evolve and change nearly beyond recognition. I once read an interview with Robin Williams where he referred to reading Stapledon as "metaphysical therapy", and you will certainly have your perspective expanded by reading Last and First Men.

The sort of sequel to Last and First Men , and probably Stapledon's masterpiece, is Star Maker. The five billion years of the earlier book are just a blip in the dizzying sweep of Star Maker, which is a sort of history of intellegence in the universe.

Not really novels in the conventional sense, these two works are filled with enough invention, speculation, profound mysticism, science, and philosophy to fuel hundreds of less ambitious works. And, in fact, they probably have. Science fiction writers have, knowingly or unknowingly, been riffing on or ripping off Stapledon's work now for nearly 75 years.

The choice of this work as my first Last and First Lines selection was, of course, my own little in-joke for myself. Yeah, I know. Lame.

Tomorrow look for another installment from the Department of Last and First Lines.